The number of individual languages listed for Pakistan is 74. All are living languages. Of these, 66 are indigenous and 8 are non-indigenous. Furthermore, 7 are 'institutional', 17 are 'developing', 39 are 'vigorous', 9 are 'in trouble', and 2 are 'dying'.[citation needed]

National language

Urdu (اردو) is the
national language (قومی زبان), lingua franca and one of two official languages of Pakistan (the other currently being English). Although only about 8% of Pakistanis speak it as their first language, it is widely spoken and understood as a second language by the vast majority of Pakistanis and is being adopted increasingly as a first language by urbanized Pakistanis. It was introduced as the
lingua franca upon the capitulation and annexation of
Sindh (1843) and
Punjab (1849) with the subsequent ban on the use of
Persian. According to the linguistic historian
Tariq Rahman, however, the oldest name of what is now called Urdu is
Hindustani or Hindvi and it existed in some form at least from the 14th century if not earlier (Rahman 2011). It was probably the
Indo-Aryan language of the area around Delhi that absorbed words of Persian, Arabic, and
Chagatai (a Turkic language)—in a process like the one that created modern English. This language, according to Rahman, is the ancestor of both modern
Hindi and Urdu. These became two distinct varieties when Urdu was first Persianized in the 18th century and then Hindi was Sanskritized from 1802 onwards.

The name Urdu is a short form of 'Zuban-e-Urdu-e-Mualla' i.e. language of the exalted city. In India the term Urdu, although it means 'military camp' in most
Turkic languages, was used for the capital city of the king. In other words, the language of the king's capital was a Persianized form of the language known only by its previous and currently less common name
Hindustani. This was shortened to 'Urdu' and this term was used for the first time in written records by the poet Mushafi in 1780 (Rahman 2011: 49). It is widely used, both formally and informally, for personal letters as well as public literature, in the literary sphere and in the popular media. It is a required subject of study in all primary and secondary schools. It is the first language of most
Muhajirs (
Muslim refugees who fled from different parts of
India after independence of Pakistan in 1947), who form nearly 8% of Pakistan's population, and is an acquired second language for the rest. As Pakistan's national language, Urdu has been promoted to promote national unity. It is written with a modified form of the
Perso-Arabic alphabet—usually in
Nastaliq script.

Provincial languages

Punjabi

poetry in Punjabi

Punjabi is
the most widely spoken language in Pakistan,(It is spoken as a first language by more than 44% of Pakistanis, mostly in
Punjab.)[2] the 11th most widely
spoken language in India, and the third most-spoken native language in the
Indian Subcontinent. In Canada, it is the fifth
most-spoken native language.It has a significant presence in the
United Arab Emirates, the
United States, the
United Kingdom,
Australia,
New Zealand,
Italy, and the
Netherlands.
When Pakistan was created in 1947, although Punjabi was the majority language in West Pakistan(still today in modern Pakistan) and Bengali the majority in East Pakistan and Pakistan as whole, English and Urdu were chosen as the national languages. The selection of Urdu was due to its association with South Asian Muslim nationalism and because the leaders of the new nation wanted a unifying national language instead of promoting one ethnic group's language over another. Article 251 of the Constitution of Pakistan declares that these two languages would be the only official languages at the national level, while provincial governments would be allowed to make provisions for the use of other languages.Eventually, Punjabi was granted status as a provincial language in Punjab Province.
The earliest Punjabi literature is found in the fragments of writings of the 11th Nath yogis (ناتھیوگی) Gorakshanath and Charpatnah which is primarily spiritual and mystical in tone.
Fariduddin Ganjshakar (1179-1266) is generally recognised as the first major poet of the Punjabi language.[3] Roughly from the 12th century to the 19th century, many great Sufi saints and poets preached in the Punjabi language, the most prominent being
Bulleh Shah. Punjabi Sufi poetry also developed under
Shah Hussain (1538–1599),
Sultan Bahu (1630–1691),
Shah Sharaf (1640–1724), Ali Haider (1690–1785),
Waris Shah (1722–1798),
Saleh Muhammad Safoori (1747-1826),
Mian Muhammad Baksh (1830-1907) and
Khwaja Ghulam Farid (1845-1901).The
Sikh gurus also complied their teachings in Punjabi language.
The Punjabi language is famous for its rich literature of
qisse (قصّے), most of the which are about love, passion, betrayal, sacrifice, social values and a common man's revolt against a larger system. The qissa of
Heer Ranjha by
Waris Shah (1706–1798) is among the most popular of Punjabi qissas. Other popular stories include Sohni Mahiwal by Fazal Shah, Mirza Sahiban by Hafiz Barkhudar (1658–1707), Sassui Punnhun by Hashim Shah (c. 1735–c. 1843), and Qissa Puran Bhagat by
Qadaryar (1802–1892).[citation needed]
Heroic ballads known as Vaar (وار) enjoy a rich oral tradition in Punjabi. Famous Vaars are Chandi di Var (1666–1708), Nadir Shah Di Vaar by Najabat and the Jangnama of
Shah Mohammad (1780–1862).[4]
Punjabi language is spoken roughly in area between
Islamabad and
Delhi. The standard Punjabi variety the Majhi dialect is from the
Lahore,
Sialkot,
Gujranwala and
Sheikhupura districts and it is written in the
Shahmukhi script.
The speakers of
Saraiki and
Hindko have previously been included in the Punjabi totals.

Pashto has rich written literary traditions as well as an oral tradition. There are three major dialect patterns within which the various individual dialects may be classified; these are Pakhto, which is the Northern (
Peshawar) variety, and the softer Pashto spoken in the southern areas.
Khushal Khan Khattak (1613–1689) and
Rahman Baba (1633–1708) were famous poets in the Pashto language. In the last part of 20th century, Pakhto or Pashto has produced some great poets like
Ghani Khan,
Khatir Afridi and
Amir Hamza Shinwari. They are not included in the overall percentage.

Balochi

Balochi (بلوچی) is spoken as a first language by about 4% of Pakistanis, mostly in
Balochistan province. Rakshani is the major dialect group in terms of numbers. Sarhaddi is a sub-dialect of Rakshani. Other sub-dialects are Kalati (Qalati), Chagai-Kharani and Panjguri. Eastern Hill Balochi or Northern Balochi is very different from the rest. The name Balochi or Baluchi is not found before the 10th Century. It is one of the 9 distinguished languages of Pakistan. Since
Balochi is a very poetic and rich language and has a certain degree of affinity to
Urdu, Balochi poets tend to be very good poets in Urdu as well and
Ata Shaad,
Gul Khan Nasir and
Noon Meem Danish are excellent examples of this.

Sub-provincial regional languages

Saraiki

Saraiki (Sarā'īkī, also spelt Siraiki, or less often Seraiki) is an Indo-Aryan language of the
Lahnda group, spoken in the south-western half of the province of Punjab. Saraiki is to a high degree mutually intelligible with Standard Punjabi and shares with it a large portion of its vocabulary and morphology. At the same time in its phonology it is radically different (particularly in the lack of tones, the preservation of the voiced aspirates and the development of implosive consonants), and has important grammatical features in common with the Sindhi language spoken to the south. Saraiki is the first language of about 20 million people in Pakistan, its territory ranges across southern
Punjab, parts of southern
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and some border regions of northern
Sindh and eastern
Balochistan.

Brahui

Brahui (براھوی) is a
Dravidian language of central and east-central
Balochistan. The language has been influenced by neighboring
Balochi and to a lesser extent by
Sindhi and
Pashto. 1% of the Pakistani population has Brahui as their first language. It is one of the nine distinguished[clarification needed] languages of
Pakistan. The
Brahui people have traditionally been taken as a relict population, suggesting that
Dravidian languages were formerly more widespread but were supplanted by the incoming
Indo-Aryan languages.[6] However, this idea has fallen out of favor; Brahui appears to have migrated to Balochistan from
central India after 1000 CE, as evidenced by the absence of
Avestan loanwords. The main Iranian contributor to Brahui vocabulary, Balochi, is a western Iranian language like
Kurdish that moved to the area from the west only around 1000 CE.[7]

Kashmiri

Other languages

English (previous colonial and co-official language)

English is a co-official language of Pakistan and is widely used in the executive, legislative and judicial branches as well as to some extent in the officer ranks of Pakistan's armed forces. Pakistan's
Constitution and laws were written in English and are now being re-written in the local languages. It is also widely used in
schools,
colleges and
universities as a
medium of instruction. English is seen as the language of upward mobility, and its use is becoming more prevalent in upper social circles, where it is often spoken alongside native Pakistani languages. In 2015, it was announced that there were plans to promote Urdu in official business, but Pakistan's Minister of Planning Ahsan Iqbal stated,"Urdu will be a second medium of language and all official business will be bilingual." He also went on to say that English would be taught alongside Urdu in schools.[9]

Arabic is the religious language of Muslims. The
Quran,
Sunnah,
Hadith and
Muslim theology is taught in Arabic with
Urdu translation. The Pakistani diaspora living in the
Middle East has further increased the number of people who can speak Arabic in Pakistan. Arabic is taught as a religious language in
mosques,
schools,
colleges,
universities and
madrassahs. A majority of Pakistan's
Muslim population has had some form of formal or informal education in the reading, writing and pronunciation of the
Arabic language as part of their religious education.

The National Education Policy 2017 declares in article 3.7.4 that: “Arabic as compulsory part will be integrated in Islamiyat from Middle to Higher Secondary level to enable the students to understand the Holy Quran.“ Furthermore, it specifies in article 3.7.6: “Arabic as elective subject shall be offered properly at Secondary and Higher Secondary level with Arabic literature and grammar in its course to enable the learners to have command in the language.“ This law is also valid for private schools as it defines in article 3.7.12: “The curriculum in Islamiyat, Arabic and Moral Education of public sector will be adopted by the private institutions to make uniformity in the society.“[11]

Persian (previous colonial and literary language)

Persian (فارسی) was the official and cultural language of the
Mughal Empire, a continuation since the introduction of the language by
Central AsianTurkic invaders who migrated into the Indian Subcontinent,[12] and the patronisation of it by the earlier Turko-Persian Delhi Sultanate. Persian was officially abolished with the arrival of the British: in
Sindh in 1843 and in
Punjab in 1849. It is today spoken primarily by the
Dari speaking refugees from
Afghanistan and the Hazara community of Quetta.

Bengali (previous regional and immigrant language)

Bengali (بنگالی) is not an official language in Pakistan, but a significant number of Pakistani citizens have migrated from
East Bengal and live in West Pakistan or East Pakistan prior to 1971. Bengali was recognised as the second official language of Pakistan on 29 February 1956, and article 214(1) of the constitution of Pakistan was reworded to "The state language of Pakistan shall be Urdu and Bengali".[13] Others include illegal immigrants who migrated from Bangladesh after 1971. Most Pakistani Bengalis, are bilingual speaking both Urdu and Bengali, and are mainly settled in Karachi.

Minor languages

Other languages spoken by linguistic minorities include the languages listed below, with speakers ranging from a few hundred to tens of thousands. A few are highly
endangered languages that may soon have no speakers at all.[14]

Classification

Indo-Iranian

Most of the languages of Pakistan belong to the
Indo-Iranian (more commonly known as Indo-Iranic[15]) branch of the
Indo-European language family.[16][17] They are divided between two or three major groups:
Indo-Aryan (the majority, including Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Hindko, and Saraiki, among others),
Iranian (or Iranic[18]) (the major ones being Pashto, Balochi, and Khowar, among others) and
Dardic (the major one being
Kashmiri). At times Dardic is considered another branch of Indo-Iranian, but many linguists term Dardic as individual Indo-Aryan languages that do not form any subgrouping within Indo-Aryan.[19] The
Nuristani language, considered another individual branch of Indo-Iranian, is spoken by the
Nuristani minority in Afghanistan near the Afghan-Pakistani border, but not known to be spoken indigenously in Pakistan.

Some of the important languages in the Indo-Aryan group are
dialect continuums. One of these is
Lahnda,[20] and includes Western Punjabi (but not standard
Punjabi), Northern Hindko, Southern Hindko, Khetrani, Saraiki, and Pahari-Potwari, plus two more languages outside of Pakistan. The other is Marwari, and includes Marwari of Pakistan and several languages of India (Dhundari, Marwari, Merwari, Mewari, and Shekhawati).[21] A third is
Rajasthani, and consists of
Bagri,
Gujari in Pakistan and several others in India: Gade Lohar,[22]Harauti (Hadothi),
Malvi, and Wagdi.

Although Urdu is not a dialect continuum, it is a major dialect of
Hindustani and somewhat differs from
Hindi, another dialect of Hindustani which is not spoken in Pakistan.

There are several dialects continuums in the Iranian group as well:
Balochi, which includes Eastern, Western and Southern Balochi;[23] and Pashto, and includes Northern, Central, and Southern
Pashto.[24]

Other

The following three languages of Pakistan are not part of the Indo-European language family:

Brahui (spoken in central Balochistan province) is a
Dravidian language. Its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by Balochi. It is an individual language in the Dravidian language family and does not belong to any subgrouping in that language family.

Burushaski (spoken in Hunza, Nagar, Yasin, and Ishkoman valleys in Gilgit–Baltistan) is a
language isolate with no indiginious written script and instead currently uses Urdu script, based on the Perso-Arabic script.

Writing systems

All languages of Pakistan, besides English, are written in
Nastaʿlīq, a modified
Perso-Arabic script. The
Mughal Empire adopted
Persian as the court
language during their rule over
South Asia as did their predecessors, such as the Ghaznavids. During this time, Nastaʿlīq came into widespread use in
South Asia. The influence remains to this day. In Pakistan, almost everything in Urdu is written in the script, concentrating the greater part of Nastaʿlīq usage in the world.

Sindhi adopted a variant of the
Persian alphabet as well, in the 19th century. The script is used in Pakistan today. It has a total of 52 letters, augmenting the Urdu with
digraphs and eighteen new letters (ڄ ٺ ٽ ٿ ڀ ٻ ڙ ڍ ڊ ڏ ڌ ڇ ڃ ڦ ڻ ڱ ڳ ڪ) for sounds particular to Sindhi and other Indo-Aryan languages. Some letters that are distinguished in
Arabic or Persian are
homophones in Sindhi.

Usually, bare transliterations of Urdu into Roman letters,
Roman Urdu, omit many
phonemic elements that have no equivalent in English or other languages commonly written in the
Latin script.[citation needed] The
National Language Authority of
Pakistan has developed a number of systems with specific notations to signify non-English sounds, but these can only be properly read by someone already familiar with Urdu.